Hello, I've decided on going for a new jackson rrxmg, and i've been browsing websites and found a rrmg (pro-series) for £150 higher than the X-series here . Rrxmg here .
Differences as far as i can see are that body is alder instead of basswood, it has 22 frets instead of 24, and the fretboard is ebony not rosewood. Pickups and floyd rose are the same, so i wonder if it would be worthwile on getting the pro series one as opposed to the x-series. I prefer the pin-stripe SW finish on the x, but if the difference is large, then i'll settle for grey. As far as i know pro-series are manufactured in japan and x and js in india, so maybe overall quality is different? Thanks in advance.

well basswood is better if your going to try to shred and alder sounds like maple wood if you've had any experience with either. and rose wood is also goes well with the basswood in a shredder sense. Really the only thing that would change between those is the tone which isn't very noticeable. And as with the japan and india stuff. Ive never had a guitar from india but ive had a few from japan and I haven't noticed anything wrong with mine that I have had from japan.Scratch that my knob i got from a japan made epiphone was wobbly and increasingly got worse. easy fix though nothing major i just put some tape on the inside of the knob. although it will need replaced eventually.
heres a article about wood seeing thats really all it looks like your deciding on.http://www.guitarplayer.com/article...-tonewoods/6502

You can also get new old stock RR pros which were made in japan if you shop around. that's what i'd do. EDIT: the new pro series, which those are, are no longer made in japan. Hence my suggestion for getting an older one.

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Originally Posted by brett.endsley

well basswood is better if your going to try to shred and alder sounds like maple wood if you've had any experience with either. and rose wood is also goes well with the basswood in a shredder sense.

disagree- that's all opinion at best, and flat-out wrong at worst.

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Originally Posted by Cathbard

We had a guy in the band admit that he liked Nickelback. We immediately started looking for his replacement.

^ I would say the best place is somewhere that still has one of the japanese ones. As such, your choice will be limited. GAK still has a couple- I've never bought any guitars from them, but I was very impressed by their service when i bought some amps from them and stuff went wrong.

Absolute has a couple too- never bought from them, so I dunno what they're like, but they have some of the better neck-thru ones with the better tremolo. if you can stretch to them you probably should, kind of thing.

that's not an exhaustive list, there may well be more shops which still have stock. those are just ones i know off the top of my head.

EDIT: yeah those two you linked to seem to be japanese, but obviously to a certain extent you're taking the seller's word for it (unless you get really good pics). I think they are judging by the looks and the trem, but i'd want better pics to be sure.

As i said, though, they can still be got new (or more accurately, "new old stock" since they've been discontinued for a while), if you want to go new.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathbard

We had a guy in the band admit that he liked Nickelback. We immediately started looking for his replacement.

Thanks a bunch, might order from one of those sites. Specs seem good, but one thing i noticed is that all of the pro-series guitars here were with passive duncan pickups, while the x-series ones were with an EMG 81-85 combo. Will this affect the sound in any way, as i've heard active pickups are better for metal playing and such.
Otherwise, prices seem about the same for both guitar models, so i might as well get the RR3...
Thanks for taking the time to search for all that, much appreciated

No worries I didn't have to search, I was already aware of those guitars

It's probably worth pointing out that the tremolo on the RR3 isn't as good as the FRT-x000 on the neck-thru japanese ones (or on the RRMG). At some point you'd ideally want to swap it for an OFR, schaller lockmeister or something like that. From what I hear, they should be a direct swap, but I haven't tried it myself, so that's no guarantee! Also, you're probably talking £130+, so that's worth bearing in mind. The neck-thru one might be better value (though it's also worth pointing out that the korean-made FRT-x000 tremolo isn't as good as the german-made OFR or lockmeister either).

yeah the pickups will affect the tone. Those duncans are more all-rounders that'll do metal, rather than the EMGs which are geared towards metal as you rightly say.

I'd rather have a better guitar. You can always swap the pickups later if you really care (though like the tremolo, it'll cost money and might not be worth it, so if you really have your heart set on EMGs, that'd be worth bearing in mind).

Some of the Japanese Jacksons did have EMGs- I can't remember if any of the RRs did (I have a feeling the RR24 did, but then it had no neck pickup ), but the big problem is the fact that they've been discontinued so you're kinda stuck with what shops still have (and also it's probably worth warning that, depending on how long they've had them, they might not be in 100% brand new pristine condition).

yahoo is actually pretty good for searching online stores' stock. You can type in the guitar model name and then limit the searches to those within the UK, so with any luck you don't have to look through 500 pages of results, lol. That's how I normally find guitars for sale that I'm interested in, lol.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathbard

We had a guy in the band admit that he liked Nickelback. We immediately started looking for his replacement.

^ yeah. unless you get a new old stock japanese one. But yeah you're not getting a USA jackson for much under £1500 unless you get a killer deal. GAK had a few really good prices on USA jacksons recently for some reason. But normal pricing is £2000+.

If you're willing to go to well over £600 for those indonesian ones i'd just get that hardtail RR5 I linked to (unless you desperately need a floyd rose).

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathbard

We had a guy in the band admit that he liked Nickelback. We immediately started looking for his replacement.

USA jacksons are way too expensive for my level. Although I have the ability to buy one, say for example http://www.gak.co.uk/en/jackson-usa...snakeskin/84686 , I don't think that is necessary as this IS in fact my second guitar.
I think i'll go with the rr3 from GAK which you suggested in the first place (http://www.gak.co.uk/en/jackson-rr3...ss-swirl/16323), Reasonable price and has features I want. Just need to find a case, and i can get it delivered off a friend from the uk by 2 weeks (as I'm spending the summer back home).
Thanks.

as I said, bear the tremolo thing in mind (the jt580LP is a bit meh, and really ideally needs to be upgraded if you're a big trem user).

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Originally Posted by oneblackened

^I played one of the new Pro Dinkies. Seriously pretty nice guitars. I prefer my MIJ DK2m but the Mexican ones have much nicer feeling necks. Oiled necks are greatest necks.

oh right they're oiled, are they? yeah oil is pretty nice. But yeah the bolt-ons are MIM and may well be worth considering- but he's looking at the RRs which are neck-thru (i think) and which aren't MIM (again, I think ).

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathbard

We had a guy in the band admit that he liked Nickelback. We immediately started looking for his replacement.

I haven't actually been much of a fan of tremolos as my last guitar had a really rubbish one, but it was still essential for a few songs, so it's one of those "doesn't hurt to have" kinda things. Read that the JT580 is decent enough, and if I don't like it it should be cake to replace it with an OFR. Shouldn't be a problem.

Seems to be up to £150, which is cheaper than the OFR's on sale (£200+), But I can get a new amp for that kinda money (selling my old one to a friend anyway).
And weirdly enough, they do orders to bulgaria, i thought i'd have to order to UK and then get someone to send it over. Seems like i'm getting a new guitar a week from now

oh yeah i mean the stock trem will do until it dies or until you have more money. if you need an amp then you should get that before upgrading the trem.

also i have a vague recollection that thomann only does the lockmeister with the 42mm locking nut, for some reason. Don't quote me on this, but I suspect you'd need the one with the 43mm nut (and confusingly i think there are a couple of different ones for each nut with, to allow for different string spacing... i'm not sure which you need ). I'm sure they could get it for you if you ever did need it, but again it's worth bearing in mind...

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathbard

We had a guy in the band admit that he liked Nickelback. We immediately started looking for his replacement.